NASA is following the water. ESA proposes to follow the methane.

Humans are still years away from realizing that life is on Mars since
ages...

NASA doesn't follow any leads that marsian life is giving, for unknown
reasons. The rovers that NASA has on the surface could in principle go back
to analyze the signs of life that were already discovered but NASA will not
do it because of ... unknown reasons.

A crucial discovery was done by Mrs Nora Noffke, that identified similar
microbial mats in the surface of Mars as she knows from fossils here on
earth. Incredible but true, NASA hasn't even cared to answer that paper
(published in a peer reviewed journal), so this is one more lost occasion
for NASA to discover life on Mars.

ESA will map the methane sites, since that is BIG hint to something
breathing under the surface. ExoMars 2020 (if it lands OK) will search for
samples at 2 meters below the surface.

Nasa has no plans visible to try to find fossils, and only geologists drive
the mission.

Nothing against gelogy of course, it is a wonderful science and the credit
for the analysis of the different formations in the marsian soil will go to
NASA.

But I think that the ESA direction could have the right frame of mind
regarding life in Mars. To find something you have to believe that it
exists. If you think otherwise, you will never find anything even if it
pops right in front of your eyes.

The positive signal from Viking had a circadian rhythm, pure magnetite that
is produced by micro-organisms was found in marsian metheorites, fossils
have been photographed by NASA with Spirit and Opportunbity but... they
were only photographed and no investigation of their composition was ever
made.

NASA produces (what biology goes) a frustrating series of hints and more
hints that are never seriously followed. It is a pity to wait till Exomars
arrives to have a definitive confirmation of all the hints we are
receiving.

Credits will then go to Mrs Nora Noffke, that was the first human to
discover life in Mars using NASA photographs.

Or will the credits go to the engineer of NASA in the seventies that took
spectra of the strange formations in the surface of the rock right next to
Viking and concluded that it was the same spectra that lichens?

I hope that ESA succeeds and we have at last a confirmation that life in
Mars is the same as life on earth since they produce the same fossils.

Of course life NOW has surely evolved since those microbes that needed
water to exist in the surface. Life underground could be thriving, it will
be a fascinating discovery.

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Might be possible to do both from orbit: look for both high concentrations
of methane and water vapor at the same time from orbit.

Bob Clark

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